“I vow, boys, I jest wish ye could ha’ seen our Elder; an’ yet, I dunno’s I do wish so, nuther.  He stood a twistin’ his hat, jest like any o’ us, an’ he kind o’ stammered, an’ I don’t believe neither on ’em knew a word he said; an’ her cheeks kep’ gittin’ redder’n redder, an’ she looked’s ef she was ready to cry, and yet she couldn’t keep from larfin, no how.  Ye see she thought he was an old man and he thought she was a little gal, an’ somehow’t first they didn’t either of ’em feel like nobody; but when I passed ’em in the road, jest out to Four Corners, they was talkin’ as easy and nateral as could be; an’ the Elder he looked some like himself, and she—­wall, boys, you jest wait till you see her; that’s all I’ve got to say.  Ef she ain’t a picter!”

The drive to the village seemed long, however, to both Draxy and the Elder.  Their previous conceptions of each other had been too firmly rooted to be thus overthrown without a great jar.  The Elder felt Draxy’s simplicity and child-like truthfulness more and more with each word she spoke; but her quiet dignity of manner was something to which he was unused; to his inexperience she seemed almost a fine lady, in spite of her sweet and guileless speech.  Draxy, on the other hand, was a little repelled by the Elder’s whole appearance.  He was a rougher man than she had known; his pronunciation grated on her ear; and he looked so strong and dark she felt a sort of fear of him.  But the next morning, when Draxy came down in her neat calico gown and white apron, the Elder’s face brightened.

“Good morning, my child,” he said.  “You look as fresh as a pink.”  The tears came into Draxy’s eyes at the word “child,” said as her father said it.

“I don’t look so old then, this morning, do I, sir?” she asked in a pleading tone which made the Elder laugh.  He was more himself this morning.  All was well.  Draxy sat down to breakfast with a lighter heart.

When Draxy was sitting she looked very young.  Her face was as childlike as it was beautiful:  and her attitudes were all singularly unconscious and free.  It was when she rose that her womanhood revealed itself to the perpetual surprise of every one.  As breakfast went on the Elder gradually regained his old feeling about her; his nature was as simple, as spontaneous as hers; he called her “child” again several times in the course of the meal.  But when at the end of it Draxy rose, tall, erect, almost majestic in her fullness of stature, he felt again singularly removed from her.

“’Ud puzzle any man to say whether she’s a child or a woman,” said the Elder to himself.  But his face shone with pleasure as he walked by her side out into the little front yard.  Draxy was speechless with delight.  In the golden east stretched a long range of mountains, purple to the top; down in the valley, a mile below the Elder’s house, lay the village; a little shining river ran side by side with its main street.  To the north were high hills, some dark green and wooded, some of brown pasture land.